


I Want to Mean It

by michals



Category: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
Genre: Guns, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, thoughts of suicide out of necessity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-29
Updated: 2012-05-29
Packaged: 2017-11-06 05:38:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/415342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/michals/pseuds/michals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ethan only does this to make sure he still can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Want to Mean It

**Author's Note:**

> This is dark. Dark and kind of nasty and probably will make you side-eye me when you're done. No actual character death, and the suicidal thoughts aren't because anyone actually wants to die, but out of duty of being an agent. Basically an image I got in my head that wouldn't go away until I wrote it out.
> 
> Title from a Killers song, because I'm just sick of naming these damn things.

1, 2, 3, 4. Easy. Ethan empties the magazine into the target, makes a pattern like he was taught, like he learned. Three for the head, three for the heart, shoulders slow them but keep them alive, knees cripple them for life and gives you all the answers you need, solar plexus and you're just being a dick, pelvis equals a lot of pain and the throat all blood. 

He keeps one. Always keep one, you never know what you'll need it for. He remembers saying this to Hanaway, to Farris, to all the recruits he trained. And that's all he says at first, you can't scare them too early, can't get too honest too fast. Steely-eyed and determined as they proved to be, it still takes some working up to to explain what that last bullet's really for.

The muzzle's hot under his lips. Luther called him crazy when he did this, just the once, just that one time when they were tipsy and light headed and any normal person would have no place on a range but hell, they're IMF and they'd have been desked if they _couldn't_ operate a weapon under the influence. 

"Fucking lunatic," Luther'd said and Ethan took a breath, tasted the smoke and heat and then pulled the gun away and gave him his best shit-eating grin but Luther didn't look at him the same after that. Not for a couple of weeks anyway.

But Luther understood, really, because he knew as well as Ethan, it's just that Luther doesn't like testing the theory like Ethan does. "You're going to end up painted across the fucking walls, you idiot," two weeks later, said with a sigh and it all went back to normal.

Ethan's not the best by sheer luck. He's smart and quick and clever but what really makes him the best? He understands. He understands that in the end he is not as important as the mission. That for as human as he is, every civilian on the street deserves his life in the face of annihilation. That if he fails...that he can't fail. 

He parts his lips, slides them across the metal, watches his teeth. 

But that doesn't mean he has to suffer. That no agent, faced with insurmountable odds and the promise of hell at the hands of those playing those odds, shouldn't be capable of taking their own lives into their hands. 

Tell that to a recruit that first day? That sends them running. Always keep one, you never know what you'll need it for...you might need it for yourself. 

He closes his eyes. He's not afraid to face this, he'd look any number of enemies down eye-to-eye without flinching, but still, he closes his eyes. He tastes the gunpower and the acrid tang, it's familiar against his tongue, sends a heady rush up past his temples, the weight of it settles in his jaw. 

He does this to make sure he still can.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Ethan!" The gun's being ripped from his mouth, out of his hands. Brandt's voice is almost inaudible through the earmuffs, Ethan mostly figures it out from the way his lips move and the severe set of his eyebrows.

"What the... _hell was that_?" Brandt's asking as Ethan flips the earmuffs around his neck, Brandt's voice catching in his throat, working past on sheer anger. 

Ethan takes a breath, looks at his hands which he crosses in front of him. "Standard procedure, Agent Brandt," he uses the 'agent' when he thinks it'll do the most damage to the man's analytic brain, "every agent of IMF knows it. You should know it too." But he's not sure of that because he didn't train Brandt, didn't even know him until he was dropped in his lap in a car in Moscow heading for the river, he doesn't know what Brandt knows.

"I get that," Brandt spits, and Ethan thinks good, someone taught him, and Ethan meets his eyes. Brandt fumbles with the next part, it comes out edgy and almost painful, "Why the hell do you feel the need to practice it?" 

Ethan's chin tips up, shoulders square; he realizes he's doing it, remembers Luther teasing him about it once, but just the once because it's not something to be made fun of. Most of the world's got a couple of inches on him at least, he doesn't let them know it. Not even Brandt. 

"I need to know I'll be ready should the need ever arise," He says, voice sounding soft to his own muffled hearing.

Ethan watches Brandt's throat work as he swallows, his mouth open as if to speak but only a choked noise comes out. And then his face twists, his stance loosens and he falls in on himself. He's running a hand across his mouth, turning away, bouncing on the balls of his feet, hand shaking around the gun at his hip.

"Jesus, Brandt," and Ethan realizes there's tears in his eyes, and he's falling out of attention, reaching for Brandt's arms, trying to get him to stand still. 

"I was just going to check-" the words are a wheeze, and the rough noise grates in Ethan's ears, Brandt clears his throat harshly, "And I find you, here, with a fucking gun in your mouth. Fuck."

"Brandt," Ethan's pulling at his hands, as he pulls Brandt in and Brandt comes willingly, arms coming up around his ribs, hands clutching in the back on his shirt. He doesn't say ' _I'm sorry, I'm sorry,_ ' though it tugs at his lips, feels like the right thing to say, because he's not - though he wishes he was. 

Brandt's skin is hot under his fingers, under the pull of his shirt across his shoulders. Ethan's hair brushes against his face and Brandt's breath flickers across his neck. 

They stand like that, in the middle of an empty firing range. Ethan doesn't move as long as Brandt doesn't.

Brandt finally takes a deep breath and starts to pull away. Ethan's sliding his hands across his back, falling back on his heels, looking to Brandt's face, and finds a gun under his chin. 

Brandt's eyes are still wet, no tear tracks though they still threaten to fall. He licks his lips as he cocks the gun.

"Would you trust me?" he says, "Should the need ever arise?" 

The better shot is through the mouth, takes out the brain stem, ensures a quick and effective death. To the temple is messy and still has a high enough rate for failure, dead center to the forehead and you could just split the hemispheres and end up drooling on yourself for the rest of your life. 

Ethan swallows past the press of the muzzle, unwaveringly matches Brandt's gaze. Under the chin, the angle Brandt's holding it, promises a death, easy. 

Brandt stares him down with fire in his eyes, breath coming out harsh and fast past his pinched lips. Ethan catches the intent behind the blue, the understanding lying there fighting above the fear and anger and sadness. 

"Yes." He says. 

They share their first kiss over the barrel of a SIG-Sauer P226 E2 and Ethan tastes metal.


End file.
